Category / Love

The wind in my face on a hot day
While I strain and swear
Wrench in hand
Making repairs on those things
That seem ever broken
Because my wallet doesn’t weigh enough
To spread the wealth
The salty sweat as it touches my lips
The water that tempts and taunts
The icy brew that lightens the load however briefly
The sun behind the limbs
Of the giant pecan tree
That gave up the last of its nuts and leaves
Long ago
Yet still provides
Even in its final days
Shade and shelter
The sound of music
Through the abused speakers
Of a radio new before cell phones
The phone I tap with fingers calloused
From too many hours
Of work
And play
It’s bright screen repeating my words back to me
Scribing the love I feel
Always
That makes me smile or cry
That drives the words that escape me
While listening to songs I don’t know the words to
Wrenching on broken things under the shade
Of love itself
Simple

Some time back I set myself the unexpectedly difficult task of setting poetry to a list of words gathered from readers as well as from my own list of loved words. Words like “passion” and “joy” and “entwine”. This little piece evolved from that list of words and required constant editing because each word seemed to give birth, or shed light on, other words that were connected. It grew, large and unwieldy. What follows is the latest edit of that poem reduced to a manageable size that, I hope, makes sense while staying on task.

So long I waited
My life spent in beautiful surrender
In anticipation
Of you
How I longed
To hold you in my arms
Knowing you existed
Without ever knowing your name
To touch you
Softly
Sensually
To invite you close to me
To feel your heat next to mine
Like a slow fire
With hopeful desire
I waited
To share a lifetime with you
In romantic wonder
With mouthwatering dreams of us
Together
How long I prepared
In fearless devotion
To kiss with passion
and gentle abandon
your exquisitely tender flesh
To taste your delicious spirit
Bathe in your intoxicating soul
To share my heart
With hopeful gratitude

Now you are here
Close to me
Laying right there next to me
Breathing softly
Singing your song with me
I am seduced by the sound of you
Awakened by the scent of you
Your body calling out to me
I reach out
and find you reaching back for me

We touch
and all I dreamed
is made real

Pulses quicken
Fingers entwine
Bodies join
You call out my name
With sweet moaning
Press your body next to mine
With tempered fury
Our souls connection
A perfect union
To light the sky
with joyful passion
Our sacred space
with intense pleasure
Our one heart
with Love
Throughout our days
and into the nights
I offer you love with thoughtful intention
and give myself to you

You are the gift
I never thought I deserved
The treasure of a lifetime
I am yours

I wonder; will I ever become the man I have tried so hard to be? Will my past ever let go of me? Can I ever truly break free from it? Move beyond it?

I don’t know. I really don’t.

Most of my successes have been built on the back of my failures. I didn’t learn to be the man I am by getting it right but by screwing up, epically, and then learning from my mistakes and becoming proactive instead of reactive. To always be mindful. To listen to what it is I am feeling, understand it, then express it productively.

I try.

There are times when unexpected reactions bubble up and I become toxic. Reaction takes over. Erupts.

Is this failure? While “failure” is not a word I often apply to anything, it can be considered a failure if those reactions affect those I love.

It happens. I wish it didn’t, I wish to God it didn’t, but it does and when it does I can not help but feel as if it is the last mistake I am allowed.

Then I remember something I told a friend of mine, “It’s not the last fight until it’s the last fight.”

In treating one of those volatile reactions as the final act that drives the nail into whatever it is I am doing I literally provide the nail, and the hammer, and the force that drives the nail home. I manifest my fears by believing in them.

What I am doing is worth the effort. Where I am is worth the time to adjust to. Who I am with is worth loving and believing in. We are worth believing in.

I will not believe in anything but those things which further my path, our path, and our place in the world.

Yes, I will make mistakes, everyone makes mistakes. There will be times that the events of my past, a past I have spent so much time learning will come back to haunt me. The reason for this is simple; I have dealt with those things alone.

I am not alone. Not any more. I have a whole new set of lessons to learn now.

If someone had told me several years ago that I would drive into a hurricane to be with the woman I loved I would have smiled at such a romantic notion but denied the possibility. I had, after all, sworn off love. I was not ready.

So I spent those years preparing myself. Learning what love is. How to express it. To share it. I took the time to learn what it is that I wanted from love and from life. To become the person I am now so if I ever had the chance to experience real love I would be ready.

Last week I drove into Hurricane Nate to be with the woman I love.

At the same time, I also drove out of the hurricane that was once my life. Hurricane James. I left the last remnants of that former life with the furniture and bed, still made, dishes washed and left in cupboards, keys left to a friend as a gift of my former home in North Dakota as I broke free of the chrysalis where I transformed.

I spread my wings and, for the very first time in my life, knew exactly where I was going and what I needed to do.

It took a long time to get here. A lifetime. It is a journey I would gladly make again because it has led me to a place of love and of hope.

My future, while still uncertain in many ways, feels more sure than it ever has. Every step I make is made with faith. With courage. With the knowledge that those steps are no longer made alone. Every step is made with “Us” in mind. It makes a difference.

My heart feels large. Expansive. Enveloping. Full. It has been joined with another, my Beloved, in ways I could only imagine before now. Ways I knew existed but had never experienced.

I have travelled a long way to get here and I have a long way yet to go, but I am, finally, home.

The night is long
The bed large and empty as a vacant lot
I raise up as if from a depth of heavy water
Gasping for breath
Reaching like a tangled weed for the sun
Which has yet to reveal itself
The morning progresses as if through setting concrete
Each second passing slower than the one preceding
Yet with each impermanent second
The day becomes brighter
The air lighter
Sweeter
Time begins to move swifter
The sun flies across the cloudless sky
Until the excited barking of the dogs
Announces your arrival
Then time,
as if under the influence of divine magick,
stops.
You step inside
accompanied by your own brilliant light
to replace the sun
now frozen and pale
I meet your smile at the door
with my own
Our lips touch
and time begins anew
keeping pace with our unhurried
yet urgent advance to the bedroom
where we lay close
Fingers entwine
Soft words are spoken between kisses
Arms enfold
and hold each other close
Hands caress
firm and sure
Legs envelop
Bodies press
as clothes fall away
to allow skin on skin
Urgency becomes passion
Breath becomes heavy
as we
half dressed
and tangled in the other
Join